I’ve been mining Monero for some months now. I love it — I’ve learned to set up wallets, sell back to exchanges, met fellow miners, and basically understand the entire farm to table experience.
Here is where I lie confused… How much energy do I consume when I mine. The U.S. Department of Energy believes that 63% of our electricity comes from Fossil Fuels (35% natural gas and 28% coal), 19% from Nuclear, and 17% from Renewables. As a petroleum engineer, it’s safe to say that I don’t care about coal (obsolete energy source with high emissions) or nuclear (clean burning, but can cause catastrophic disasters to human life). But, I do value natural gas and renewable energy. I think natural gas is a superior interim energy source for our electric grid until we reach a point where the U.S.’s supply and demand can accommodate 100% renewables. It may be a while…
Do I think fossil fuels should be used to mine crypto? No. I’m all about technology/innovation and I like fossil fuels. I think fossil fuels should be optimized since we have a fixed amount left. I don’t think crypto counts as an optimization when basic electricity in some countries isn’t the norm.
This is why my mining is 100% renewable and carbon neutral. I pay a marginal 1-2 cents more per kilowatt hour just to make sure my electricity to mine is sourced from community solar farms. It’s important to me to support the crypto ecosystem, the sustainability ecosystem, and community solar farmers!
Monero’s hashrate is about 475 MH/s (diminutive, I know). If your rig generates 2000 hashes/s (Vega 64), you could be looking at 3-4 kWh/day. It may seem small, but what if you own 1000s of rigs? As more coins are mined, the hash rate becomes larger making it difficult to mine and costly.
My philosophy is to stop mining a coin when it’s about 60% mined because I don’t want to mess around with high demand hash rates. I would love to see more coins based on proof-of-stake algorithms that do not encourage mining. Most people aren’t using sustainable energy sources.